


you'd say "on with the show"  (so on we go...)

by jormaperalta



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, basically how Mike got Eleven home when they walked through the woods, what happened between The Vanishing of Will Byers and The Weirdo on Maple Street
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:03:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8242205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jormaperalta/pseuds/jormaperalta
Summary: The missing scene of what happened between the end of the first episode and the beginning of the second when the boys of Maple Street found Eleven.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a conversation between two Tumblr users [here](http://strangerthingsaus.tumblr.com/post/151535745104/almost-1000-sure-eleven-rode-on-with-mike-back-to) that I just had to write.

All Mike can do is stare.

“Who the hell are you?” Dustin asks, keeping his flashlight on the girl’s (boy’s? He has no idea) face.

They don’t answer. Their mouth just opens then closes.  

“Are you hurt?” He calls to them, stepping forward a bit.

They shake their head.

“What are you doing out here?” Lucas asks, shoving his hand in front of Mike to stop him from approaching.

They don’t answer, just shivers.

“Are you cold?” Mike asks.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you stand outside during a storm,” Dustin says obviously, right as lightning strikes and Mike can see she doesn’t even have any shoes on and that she’s probably a girl, but not sure how he knows. Just intuition, maybe. He can’t imagine being out here in the woods with no shoes.

“You can come back to my house, f-for some dry clothes,” Mike offers, and Lucas pulls him backwards, flicking off his flashlight, and turns him around.

“Are you insane?” He says, his voice hushed but angry. “You’re going to invite some stranger into your house? Do you wanna get murdered?”

“I thought we were trying to find Will,” Dustin adds, now all three of them are turned away from the girl only in a yellow t-shirt with a giant burger on it- was that from Benny’s?

Mike, soaked to the bone, doesn’t really have time for this. “We can’t just leave her here, and it’s too dark out here anyway to find Will.”

“Plus, terrifying as hell,” Dustin says. Both Mike and Lucas give him a look but then Dustin whispers, “What if she’s a ghost?”

“Jesus Christ-” Lucas mutters but Dustin spins around, forcing his flashlight behind him.

It lands on the girl’s face. She’s still there, just wincing a bit at the light.

“Of course she’s still there,” Mike hisses and waits for Dustin to lower the light. He can still kind of see her face in the halo of the light that's on her shoulder.

“Do you want to come with us?” He asks. “We can get you out of the rain, and some dry clothes. If you want.”

He watches as she looks around then looks back at him. Finally, she nods. She looks so small, so frightened. Kind of like the time Nancy found a cat on the side of the road when he was 8 and begged his parents to keep it.

But, like, you know, this is a human girl now.

“Okay, um, follow us, we can get you out of here,” He gestures to Dustin and Lucas. Dustin is looking around with the flashlight while Lucas is staring straight at the girl like she’s about to suddenly turn into the Hulk and he's getting ready to take her down himself.

And, instead of walking back with Will, Mike and his friends walk back with a girl who can’t, or won’t, talk.

+

Eleven follows the tiny men outside of the woods. She feels better, away from the Bad Men in the Lab. Her feet hurt, but not as much as her chest. Benny. He-

Thunder booms, very loud. And it reminds her of the gunshot and the way he hit the floor, which makes her chest hurt more.

One of the scientists told her about Intuition, and how it can help you decide which people are Good or Bad. These men seem Good. They remind her of Benny, and he was Good.

She follows them to a ground that feels better on her feet, but not as good as the tile in the Lab.

They have these weird devices with them, too small to be cars but they have wheels. The one with curly hair climbs onto his, as does the one that keeps glaring at her, but the one that talks the most, with the nice, soft voice, looks at her.

“Have you never been on a bike before?”

She shakes her head. She’s too terrified to talk. Everything hurts. Everything is overwhelming.

“Well, we don’t have a fourth one anyway, so you’ll have to hold onto me, okay?”

“Are you crazy?” The glaring one says, glaring some more. He reminds her of the Bad Men, the ones that liked to put her in the Room. “You’re gonna let her touch you? She’s a weirdo!” She winces at the raised voice.

“How else are we gonna get her back to my place?” The soft one asks.

The mean one says, “We don’t! That’s how!” His voice is so loud.

The curly one says, “She can run beside us.”

“She doesn’t have shoes on!” And then they point the lights at her feet. They hurt so bad but she doesn't sit. Must keep moving, she has to go far away.

“What kind of idiot doesn’t wear shoes?” The mean one says.

The soft one turns away from him and looks at her with the Face. She swallows, afraid of what he’s going to ask her to do, because she _knows_ he’s about to ask her to do something. Papa did that face. All the scientists did that face. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Never did.

“Can you hold onto me while we bike home?” He asks, and she’s taken aback. No hurt? 

Surprised, she nods before she sees what she’d have to be doing. The other two start moving, the Bike just taking them faster than running. The soft one climbs the Bike and looks to her. “You ready?”

Even though she’s not, she steps close to him. Afraid to touch him, afraid to hurt. But slowly, she climbs over the machine like he did. There’s at least an inch between them, and the only parts of them that touch are their legs, but then the Bike starts to move, and she’s never experienced anything like this before and she lurches forward and suddenly she’s on his back.

She winces, expecting him to scream about how bad she is, or worse, praise her, but he says nothing. Just moves the Bike.

The only lights they have are up in the sky, but different than the ones in the ceilings, and in the lines of light right in front of them from those devices the soft one and the other ones carried.

Eleven discovers she’s still holding onto the soft one, her hands on his arms. Overcome with an uncomfortable feeling, she leans back.

But that’s when he turns, and she falls onto him again, but this time gentler. Now her arms are closer to his torso. He’s not screaming in pain, or yelling at her to stop.

Maybe touch can be good.

+

Mike helps the girl off the bike, and helps his friends stash his bikes out of the rain and in the garage, hopefully they won’t rust.

“How are we gonna sneak her inside?” Dustin asks, looking at the girl as they stand by the garage. She’s not looking at any of them, just staring at his yard like she’s looking at a circus.

“My parents should still be asleep,” Mike says. “Holly too. We can just walk her in.”

“What if Nancy sees us?” Lucas asks, looking over at his older sister’s window.

“I saw Steve the Boyfriend trying to get in earlier,” Mike says with a roll of his eyes.

“Yeah I doubt she’ll leave the room,” Dustin says with a waggle of his eyebrows. Mike shoves him hard, because ew, then focuses on the girl.

“C’mon, we’re getting out of these wet clothes,” Mike tells her. She’s starting to shiver even more in the cold air of his garage so he grabs one of the spare jackets hanging up and hands it to her. “Put this on, it’ll keep you warm,” He says, when she just stares at him instead of taking it.

Slowly, she slides her arms through, and pulls the jacket on. He’s even slightly amused when she burrows into it a bit and tugs it tighter, like she’s never worn a jacket before.

He looks over and sees Lucas’s face all pinched up, so he ushers them all inside and she follows them through the garage.

They drip over the carpet, but hopefully it’ll get dried up before his mom wakes up.

“Basement?” Lucas asks, his voice quiet, thank god.

Mike nods and gestures for the girl to follow, because she’s staring at everything in his house like it’s in a non-boring museum.

They walk down the stairs, and Mike notices there are flecks of blood in her footprints on the steps and winces.

“Um, okay, you should sit down,” He goes to touch her but she flinches so he holds his hands up. “Sorry, I just- you should sit down. If your feet hurt.”

She looks down at her feet, not even looking at the parts that would be hurt, just the tops. Then, she moves to sit down on the sofa, immediately sinking into it but sitting like she’s about to get yelled at, starting to pant heavily as the storm kicks back up again.

Well.

What now?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!! (Title is from "Traveling Song" by Ryn Weaver aka a great song). Thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback, let me know! I'm on tumblr [@wondereleven](http://www.wondereleven.tumblr.com/)


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